


Gender Bender

by scullywolf



Series: TXF: Scenes in Between [14]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, Gen, Introspection, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-26
Updated: 2015-07-26
Packaged: 2018-04-11 08:26:33
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 610
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4428338
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/scullywolf/pseuds/scullywolf





	Gender Bender

_“What the hell were you doing back there?”_  
_“I don’t know.”_  
 _“You don’t know?”_  
 _“No.”_  
 _“You all right?”_

It was a long --  _long_  -- hike back to the car. It would have been a long hike even if Scully hadn’t needed to stop and empty her stomach again. (Twice.)

Mulder spent most of it stewing. On a rational level, yes, he was concerned for his partner, but humans are, alas, not purely rational beings.

She was supposed to be watching his back. Instead, she’d left the barn and gone off alone with Brother Whatshisname, putting them both in danger in the process. They could have made a quick getaway, undetected, if he hadn’t been forced to go searching for her, kicking down doors and announcing his presence to the entire community. And then when he’d found her…

How could she have let herself get trapped in such a position? She was a trained federal agent, for god’s sake, not some philandering businessman. She should have been more careful. She, who was so fond of protocol and doing things by the book, instead just suddenly decided to spend time in a locked room alone with a potentially dangerous stranger? She was  _smarter_  than that!

He did realize, somewhere deep beneath the swirling cloud of irritation, that he was probably being unfair. To his credit, he didn’t vent his irritation aloud; she had already been punished enough, probably. Still, he couldn’t seem to stop thinking about what he’d seen, what might have happened if he had been only a few minutes slower in finding her.

By the time they reached the car, Mulder found himself having to try very hard not to lose his own lunch, as well.

***

The walk to the car could have taken one hour or ten; she wouldn’t have been able to say. She spent most of it in a daze, her brain foggy and vaguely sloshy. It was a condition somewhat akin to being severely inebriated, but this was nothing like the giggly buzz she used to get at Christmastime, when she and Missy were both home from college, splitting bottles of wine late into the night after everyone else had gone to bed.

She was only distantly aware of being sick, again, and only started really coming back to herself once they were nearly back to the road.

What had happened back at the farm… she didn’t have a clear picture of things at all. She remembered Brother Andrew saying he had information, remembered following him into the room, growing uneasy as he started telling stories without actually  _saying_  anything of substance… and then the next thing she remembered with any clarity at all was being outside, trying not to retch on her shoes.

In between, there were flashes, images, snippets of time half a second long, and if she tried to probe her memory more deeply and bring those snippets into focus, she was hit with an involuntary and uncomfortable sense of arousal. And  _that_  made no sense at all.

Scully had never been particularly impulsive, especially where sex was concerned. She couldn’t imagine going to bed with someone she didn’t care deeply about. That just wasn’t how she was wired. So to have these feelings in the absence of any sentiment was deeply disturbing, to say the least.

As the car came into view ahead of them, she glanced over at Mulder, who was still supporting her with an arm around her back. His jaw was tense, eyes fixed straight ahead, his very posture radiating frustration. It made her feel like she should apologize, though she wasn’t sure what exactly she should be apologizing for.


End file.
